King of the Hill: The Complete Second Season

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It didn't take long for the Hill family to return.

By Tal Blevins

Wow! Unlike most animated TV box sets *cough*The Simpsons*cough*, King of the Hill fans certainly didn't have to wait long for the second season set. The first season was just released last summer, and season two followed only four months later. And it looks like we won't have to wait too much longer for season three, as a pamphlet in season two set says it's coming this spring.

The Show

It's been on TV since 1997, so hopefully you already know about King of the Hill by now. It centers on the Hills, a family living off an alleyway in Arlen, Texas headed by Hank Hill, who sells propane and propane accessories. Created by Mike Judge (the mind behind Beavis and Butthead and Office Space) and former The Simpsons writer Greg Daniels, King of the Hill is brilliantly funny without being over-the-top, and its well-developed characters -- although animated -- are some of the most "real" people on television.

The shows included in the 22 episode, four-disc set are:

Disc One

How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying

Texas City Twister

Arrowhead

Hilloween

Jumpin' Crack Bass

Husky Bobby

Disc Two

The Man Who Shot Cane Skretteburg

The Son that Got Away

Bobby Slam

The Unbearable Blindness of Laying

Meet the Manger Babies

Disc Three

Snow Job

I Remember Mono

Three Days of Kahndo

Traffic Jam

Hank's Dirty Laundry

Disc Four

The Final Shinsult

Leanne's Saga

Junkie Business

Life in the Fast Lane Bobby's Saga

Peggy's Turtle Song

Propane Boom - Part 1

One of the animated menus. Get that wig off your head, Bobby!

As I mentioned earlier, King of the Hill is not only one of the funniest shows on television, but it's also one of the most realistic depictions of family life. It's not slapstick funny and it's not over-the-top funny -- it's the perfect mix of believable realism with just slightly outrageous situations that make King of the Hill so humourous.

Meet the Manger Babies.

Season two was our first introduction to the Manger Babies, Bobby's first job and where we first learned that Peggy had a penchant for the guitar. While the characters were still coming into their own in season one, the second season is where the show really gelled, and the characters were molded into how we know them today.

An excellent season overall.

8 out of 10

Whatever you do, don't move that chair!

The Video

Presented in TV-standard 1.33:1 full-frame, King of the Hill looks pretty much like it does on the small screen. The blacks are nice and dark, but the rest of the colors do seem a bit washed out. Of course, the colors seem a bit washed out on the television show as well, so it's a pretty accurate depiction of what the show really looks like.

I did detect some shimmering in the transfer and some haloing, but nothing that was overly distracting. What was more annoying was the amount of speckles of dust and dirt apparent while watching the DVD.

6 out of 10

Paging Dr. Kevorkian.

The Audio

You can listen to all of the episodes in either English Dolby Surround or Spanish Dolby Surround, with English or Spanish subtitles. The dialogue is easy to hear, which is extremely important since King of the Hill is driven by the writing and the characters.

Nothing spectacular, but it sounds just like you'd expect a television show to sound.

7 out of 10

The boy still ain't right.

The Extras

Each of the four discs features animated menu screens with bits from the show, like Hank freaking out because Bobby is wearing a wig, or on the last disc where Bill removes his shirt that says "Disc 3" revealing another t-shirt underneath that reads "Disc 4," which is reminiscent of a similar shirt switch in "Meet the Manger Babies."

Like the first season, the four DVDs in the King of the Hill: The Complete Second Season set are housed in relatively flimsy slim-cases which don't stay shut very well. They are a bit different than the first season set in that they each feature one of the four alley-loiterers (Hank, Dale, Boomhauer and Bill), with a quote in the inner jacket of the disc.

You would think with 22 episodes, you could expect some hefty crew commentaries in the set. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. The only commentary from the crew is for the first episode of season two -- "How To Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying" -- where co-creator Greg Daniels and writer Paul Lieberstein give a bit of insight into the episode. With 22 episodes, the inclusion of only one crew commentary is a big let-down, and like with season one, King of the Hill creator Mike Judge is completely missing. Maybe he's just a shy guy.

Just a typical day at the Hills.

Like the first set, there are a few commentary tracks by the in-character actors (four total, one per disc). Peggy (Kathy Najimy), Bobby (Pamela Segall) and Luanne (Brittany Murphy) add their take on two of the episodes, while Dale (Johnny Hardwick), Bill (Stephen Root) and Toby Huss as Cotton Hill in one episode and Kahn in another provide the other character commentary. While the unrehearsed, unwritten Peggy, Bobby and Luanne tracks tend to drag, the Dale, Bill and Cotton/Kahn tracks have their moments, mainly because Stephen Root is so quick on toes as the pitiful Bill Dauterive.

Other featurettes on the set include excerpts from the King of the Hill book "The Boy Ain't Right," the "The Arlen School of Drawing" where animator Glen Dion shows the steps taken to get all the members of the Hill family plus Luann "on model" and "Animation Evolution," which show animatics from "Texas City Twister" side-by-side with the final product. Commentary from Greg Daniels accompanies the piece, and he explains the process of an animatic, what it's useful for and how long it takes to go from concept to storyboard to final product.

Another shot of the menus.

One of my favorite extra features are the many Director Intros for nearly every episode, most of which are truly surreal. These are brief intro bits to the episodes which show some truly bizarre twists on the Hills, like DJ Hizzy Hank and one of the Manger Babies getting its head blown off with a shotgun. I don't fully understand what they were intended to be used for, unless it was just to make the crew crack up when a director introduced his take on an episode, but I enjoyed every one of them.

Disc four features some of the original music from the show, along with a couple of musical sequences from "Meet the Manger Babies" and "Peggy's Turtle Song." Passed off as "music videos," this are really just clips directly from the show, and not really "extra" features at all.

Rounding out the set are nearly 200 (yes, nearly 200) deleted and extended scenes. While many of the scenes are animatics with rough voiceovers, many of the scenes are complete and were just cut from the show for time or consistency.

7 out of 10

A scene from the Director Intros. Go DJ Double H.

Final Verdict

A good set of extras combine with passable video, decent audio and a quality set of episodes to make King of the Hill: The Complete Second Season a box set worth checking out if you can find it for the right price.